


And All I Got Were These Lousy Ghost Powers

by Masu_Trout



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Afterlife Shenanigans, Character Death, Fluffy Death Fic, Gen, Ghosts, Interspecies Friendship, Poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8075593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Lynne dies. Again. This time might be a little more permanent than the rest, though.
(Alternately: death is a lot more fun if you've already got a friend on the other side.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boychik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/gifts).



> Happy, uh... Press Starting opening, I suppose! I really hope this works to your tastes, boychik!

“Sissel,” Lynne said, “thank you.”

The alleyway was cool and damp. In a few hours, the rising sun would burn away the lingering chill, but now it was as dark as could be. Even the moon was blotted out, hidden behind thick clouds.

_Thank me when we're out of this,_ Sissel hissed. His soul radiated anger; if he'd had an actual tail in this form, it would be bristling.

Lynne couldn't help but smile. His physical form, still and cold with his soul roaming about, was curled up in her lap. She reached a trembling hand up and scratched behind one ear. “I think we might be chasing our own tails on this one, you know?” She laughed. “Oh wait, that's dogs, isn't it?”

His annoyance rasped over her like sandpaper. _You shouldn't be talking so much. Save your energy._

Lynne frowned. “Missile would have appreciated that one.”

Time was ticking onward. She could feel her hands starting to go numb. It was a familiar sensation by now.

She wished Missile were here, and not just for his sense of humor. He had a way of comforting Sissel when it mattered most; it was near impossible to be sad with the little Pomeranian around. 

And, she realized suddenly, she was going to miss Missile too. Missile, Kamila, Jowd, Cabanela, Sissel himself— 

_Stop that!_ Sissel was a mix of determination and panic; their link meant she could feel every passing thought that flitted through his head. _Just – just hold on a few more minutes, okay? Once you die I'll try again. There's something we missed, I'm sure of it._

They'd tried the nearby buildings, but all of them were locked up for the night. They'd tried the payphone, but it was blocks too far away for her to reach. They'd tried the power lines and the passing cars and a hundred other routes, but each had led to the same outcome: a fate pointlessly changed, a death that came only seconds or— at best— minutes later. 

That was the problem with poison, really. Every time she got shot (or drowned, or stabbed, or strangled... jeez, maybe she had been causing poor Cabanela too much stress), Sissel had been able to fix it in minutes. Poison, though, was such a hassle— four minutes before death still meant twelve hours after any possible meaningful change. She'd died fifty times this night alone, the poison taking her body over and over. 

She wanted to live—of course she wanted to live—but not like this. She was so very tired.

“I can't be here forever, you know!” Lynne tried to keep her voice from wavering.

_But you can live longer than this._

So stubborn. He really was a good friend. Lynne couldn't have asked for better.

“Sissel.” She took a shuddering breath. “Please. Let's not do this again, okay? Just spend some time with me.”

There was a long, heavy pause. 

_Okay,_ Sissel said. _Okay._

The link between them stretched and broke as he pulled his soul away. A moment later, the cat on her lap begin to breathe. Sissel blinked sleepily at her and licked the pads of her fingers. Lynne laughed and stroked lightly across his back.

“Good boy.” That was dogs too, now that she thought about it, but Sissel never complained.

What happened to the spirits Sissel couldn't resurrect? There'd been more than enough of them, since they didn't always have the good luck of finding the body within twenty-four hours, but she'd never thought to wonder.

Her vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, and her hands felt numb and stiff. She was going to die soon, but she couldn't muster up much fear—this had already happened to her so many times, tonight and nights before. If anything, it felt odd to realize this might be the last time. 

It was kind of a nice thought, actually. Turned out getting poisoned really sucked.

Her head drooped. Her breathing slowed. 

“See ya, Sissel,” she tried to say, but her lips couldn't seem to form the words.

\--

Lynne woke up feeling dazed. Every bit of her felt… strange. She tried to wiggle her toes, but got confused halfway through her attempt—they didn't seem to be _there_ anymore.

Oh no. Had Sissel revived her once more? She wasn't too excited about the thought of dying yet again.

But no, this felt different. She wasn't numb; if anything, it was the opposite. She felt electrified. Every part of her was more alive than it had ever been.

With some difficulty, she managed to look around her. She was laying on her side, one arm stretched towards the mouth of the alley. The world seemed strangely sharp, and she couldn't move a muscle.

_Sissel?_ she asked.

_Lynne?_

The world went red for a moment, frozen in time, and that was when she saw him. He wasn't a cat anymore, or a presence in her head; he was an electric-blue flame, bright and dancing, arcing between loose pebbles and bits of litter as he raced towards her.

_Lynne!_ he yowled, and barreled his soul right into hers.

Their beings twisted together, closer even than when he'd occupied her head. For a moment, she could barely think—they were so tightly intertwined they might as well have been one person. She could feel their synapses spark as they intermingled. Light and thought and emotion and _LynneIthoughtyouweregone_ spiraled through her head, through her very _self_ — 

_How..?_ she asked. _What is this?_

Lynne had an idea, of course—she wasn't a detective for nothing. She knew how to connect the dots. But her mind kept refusing to accept the possibility; it seemed beyond impossible. The very idea was more than she could have ever hoped for.

_You're dead,_ Sissel told her—or, rather, showed her. Their connection was stronger than ever now, and with the thought came a jackhammer-quick succession of images: herself, massive in Sissel's eyes, pale and sick and shaking. Her eyes slowly closing, her hand ceasing to move, Sissel pressing himself tighter against her with every moment that passed. 

_You… you're like me, now, aren't you?_ he added. _You're the brightest yellow I've ever seen._

Lynne tried to look at herself, and quickly discovered that wasn't exactly a word that applied anymore; she wasn't so much _seeing_ as _sensing_. Sissel was right, though. Her body—her soul—was a flickering yellow flame, glowing so bright it looked almost like a miniature sun. She tried, experimentally, to move, but all her new form did was flare a little brighter.

_I don't understand_ , Lynne said. 

_Oh. Oh!_ Sissel twisted excitedly around her, his spirit arcing and spiraling in response to his sudden understanding. _I get it._ The next thought came not in words but in fragments—Sissel dying near Yomiel's body and coming back glowing, Missile lying in a ditch next to the Temsik meteorite and turning into a spirit—

Lynne finally caught on. _The fragment in your body!_

Sissel's soul pulsed with something like laughter. _I was so scared, I didn't even think about it. I…_ He paused for a moment. _You're okay with this, right? I didn't realize it would happen, I promise I would have asked if I'd known._

_Okay with it? Are you kidding? This is awesome!_ Lynne wrapped her soul around Sissel's once more, pulling them tighter together until she could send him every burst of glee and sudden bright idea that was popping through her head. _We're going to be the best detectives ever! They'll never see_ ghosts _coming_!

_I_. Sissel paused. She could imagine the look he'd be giving her right now if he had a face—for a cat, he could be surprisingly expressive. _Ghost detectives. I guess that is true._

_You have to help me figure out what powers I have! Do you think I'll be able to swap things?_ She sent Sissel a quick flash of swapping Cabanela's white coat for something a little more exciting.

Sissel's soul rippled and pulsed again; this time, Lynne could tell that it really _was_ laughter—or, at least, the closest equivalent for someone without a mouth. His emotions whirled with the movement, almost physical in this strange form. She caught mingled joy and relief, disbelief and a quiet, lingering horror.

The last one loomed deep and dark; it seemed to ooze more than flow. Lynne had an idea where it might have come from.

_Sissel,_ she said, as gently as she could. _I'm okay. It's okay. This isn't anything to be upset about, all right? You did the very best you could._

Sissel was quiet for a long, long moment. _Thank you_ , he said finally. 

She laughed, then, and felt her soul twirl and shake in response to her happiness. _Of course! Now, if you're done being upset_ —she gave him a playful little nudge with her mind— _we need to get started on figuring out what exactly I can do._

She tried to move away from her corpse, but all that happened was her soul flickering slightly once more. _I… hm. Actually, maybe you could show me how to move first._

_Huh? Oh, right._ Sissel's blue light arced away from her body and to a nearby rock before dancing back towards her again. He repeated the motion two or three times before stopping alongside her once more. _It's not like walking normally, you see. You sort of just have to scrunch yourself up and leap_ —

Lynne gave half a mind to his instructions, following along as he showed her how to dart from object to object and how to know which bits of the physical world might be possible to use a trick on. The rest of her thoughts were occupied with Cabanela and Kamila and Jowd. 

Cabanela and Jowd she'd be able to tell, at least, but she knew they'd still take the news hard; they cared so much about her, protected her so desperately. It wasn't going to be easy explaining to them just what had happened to her, telling them that she wouldn't be the same again. And Kamila… Kamila didn't even know about ghosts. What would she think? How was she going to feel?

_Enough_ , Lynne told herself. There'd be time for worrying later, time enough to figure out what her future was going to look like. (If nothing else, Lynne knew she would never have to worry about time again.) All of that could wait just a few minutes longer.

Right now… right now Lynne was going to sit and watch and let Sissel teach her how to _fly_.

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon for the future in Ghost Trick is that Sissel is with each of his humans friends as they finally die, and then eventually they all just become a superpowered crime-fighting team of ghosts lead by a zombie cat.


End file.
